


Show No Weakness

by Korvesta_Kaakkoon



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 17:15:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20951993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Korvesta_Kaakkoon/pseuds/Korvesta_Kaakkoon
Summary: Entrapta gets sick. She doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal. It’s just a little bit of fever. It happens.Hordak’s reaction to it is a little worrying, though. It’s just the flu. There’s no reason to panic, right?





	Show No Weakness

**Author's Note:**

> Got to get this out quick before S4 comes to kick our collective asses. Will I ever be ready? No. Do I want the season now anyway? Yes. 
> 
> This idea was inspired by Entrapdak Prompt #48 from the tumblr user its-a-trapta.

It started with a simple sneeze. 

Entrapta had been feeling stuffy the whole morning. She hadn’t been able to sleep well with her nose running and she’d been feeling pretty woozy when she got out of bed, but she hadn’t really thought there was anything unusual about that. It was about around that season, after all. Since she hadn’t been feeling too worse for wear, she’d just made her way back to the Sanctum, where Hordak had already been busy at work with the portal. 

When she’d greeted Hordak, her throat had been itchy and her voice down. Hordak had lifted a brow at that, but hadn’t said anything about it. 

It would’ve been fine. 

Had Entrapta not sneezed. Not just once, not twice, but three times in a row. 

“Ugh,” she said and dug out a handkerchief. This was just what she needed. Another distraction. She hoped it wasn’t about to get worse. Last time she’d gotten properly sick, she’d been unable to work for a whole week. She had no time for something like that!

She folded and stashed the piece of cloth back to her pocket, thinking that was the end of it. 

The horrified note in Hordak’s voice had her looking up from the notepad she’d been scrolling, though. 

“Was that…?” he started, standing rigid on the other side of the room. His shoulders looked stiff. “Are you… _sick?_”

He sounded way more appalled than he should’ve. Entrapta tilted her head. 

“Sick?” she said, then cleared her throat when her voice cracked a little. “No? I’m feeling just fine.” She would have known if she was really sick. A little bit of flu hardly counted. Entrapta shrugged. She had no time to be sick with the portal project still unfinished. They’d be running tests soon again. A little case of sniffles shouldn’t slow them down. 

She turned her eyes back on the notepad. She hadn’t thought she’d done it that fast. 

Whoah. Was the room swaying a little? Or was it just her? Shivers ran up her spine and her hair acted up. She didn’t remember the Sanctum being this cold before. 

Hordak didn’t look convinced. His back was ramrod rigid when he stepped closer, fists held tight at his sides. 

“Do not lie to me,” he started, harsh. He looked like he was about to say something more until he caught himself. He cleared his throat and looked at the ground, fingers curling open. He hunched down a little. “What I meant to say,” he started again, softer, more mellow, “was that… you don’t need… You do not have to feel like you need to lie to me about this. You’re…” Hordak opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking to be at a loss of words. “You’re safe here,” he said, barely audible. 

“I’m not lying, though,” Entrapta said in her normal volume. She pushed the tablet away with her hair. “Why would I lie? I’m not sick!” She spread her arms, then faltered a little. “Well. Not yet anyway. It’s probably just the flu. It’s barely there. I’ll just make myself some hot cocoa later.”

“But you… but… you sneezed.” Hordak looked away like this was something shameful to say out loud. 

Entrapta looked him over. He was hard to read. Not that she’d ever found _anyone_ easy to read. But he was being extra grumpy today. For some reason Hordak seemed to be really bothered by this. 

Maybe he had a thing about germs. She supposed it could’ve made sense. He had alien innards, after all. 

But a good lab partner didn’t let their partner worry. She offered him a smile and waved her hand dismissively. “It was just a couple of sneezes!” she said. “It’s just an automatic reaction to an irritant on the mucous membrane of your nose! Don’t you have sneezes?”

Hordak opened his mouth, then closed it right away, looking somewhere to Entrapta’s left. 

“Well,” he said, defensively. “That’s. Good. Yes. We wouldn’t have time for the distraction.”

“Exactly!”

He grumbled something, but his shoulders dropped. Entrapta considered it a victory and grabbed a screwdriver to open the panel on the side of one of the portal pylons. 

“I’ll keep you posted on the whole sickness thing,” she said, tossing the piece covering the intricate cabling carelessly behind her and sticking her head in through the opening to get a better view. Her hair reached for more tools. 

“Good. Yes. That is acceptable.” Hordak’s answer was muffled and Entrapta gave him an okay sign with her hair. 

She was ready to put the whole debacle behind them. So Hordak had some weirdness about sickness. It happened. Catra didn’t like getting wet. Perfuma didn’t like getting her plants trampled on by unstable robots. Everyone had their quirks. Entrapta didn’t have to _get_ them, but she supposed she could try to be polite about them. 

They worked in perfect harmony for a few hours. Her nose didn’t stop running and she kind of felt like she was getting more worn-out than she was supposed to, but it was fine. She could still work just fine. 

Around midday, she pulled out from under the platform they’d built for the portal and swiped some sweat off her forehead. Entrapta was starting to get shivery again and she wasn’t enjoying the feeling. Making her way to a desk that had at some point kind of transformed from a regular table to her temporary workstation, she dropped some unused wires on it. 

Something caught her attention. The desk was in chaos, but it was a carefully constructed chaos that she was familiar with. She knew where everything was at all times, because she could be sure that she’d put it there herself. Or at least that was the theory. But now there was something there that hadn’t been there when she’d last looked. 

The drink in the cup sitting on her desk was steaming a little. Entrapta placed a hand on her chin and leaned closer. It was definitely a cup of some hot drink. There was no denying that. She whipped a strand of hair around it and lifted it up for closer inspection. 

It looked just like hot chocolate. 

Entrapta gave it a little sniff. 

Smelled like it, too. 

She looked over her shoulder to where Hordak was working. He was standing with his back to her, his shoulders nearly at the height of his ears. 

Well. Clearly he was busy. 

Entrapta looked back at the mug. 

Well. It _had_ been on her desk. So logic stated that it must have been meant for her, then. 

She took a careful sip. It was scalding, but it most definitely was hot chocolate. It was a bit more bitter than she would have liked, and left a weird dusty aftertaste in her mouth. Military grade stuff, then. Like the ration bars. But it was nice and warm all the same. Entrapta pulled it closer to her face and smiled a little. 

Her throat would appreciate it, even if it was a little bitter. 

She took another look at Hordak just in time to see him duck his head. His ears were pointing down and maybe it was just the shadows of the lair, but they looked a little darker than they normally did. 

Oh well. She supposed the drink was going to remain a mystery for now. With a content hum, Entrapta made a seat from her hair and pulled her data pad to review their progress so far. 

They worked well through the day. They had their own little work routines that had solidified over the few weeks of shared lab space. Hordak would sometimes have to leave for important Horde business, but he never stayed away for long. Entrapta worked away happily for hours. She was really starting to feel her strength being zapped towards the evening, though. 

Maybe she ought to retire early today. She rarely did, so maybe this could be a little cheat day to gather her strength. 

When she got up from the floor, she could feel the whole world tilting. 

Her left leg gave under her and she stumbled against her desk, sending stuff rolling around with loud clanks. Her hair moved sluggishly, but that was only fair, since her thoughts weren’t moving all that fast either. 

Whoah. Everything was. Spinning. 

Hordak was at her side in an instant. Or maybe it just felt like that because Entrapta was having a hard time seeing time as a linear thing. One moment he wasn’t there and the next he was, hovering over her with a worried look, hands nearly touching, but not quite, mouth opening and closing. 

Oh no. 

She was having the shivers. Her head felt like it was filled with cotton and she was breathing through her mouth, since her nose was blocked off. 

“I guess,” Entrapta said with some struggle, “I might have gotten sick after all.” She leaned heavy against the desk. 

There was nothing to it, she supposed. She was going to have to get to bed and sleep it off. Here’s hoping that it was going to pass in a day or two. They were getting close to a really important test that was going to make or break their current build. She didn’t want to sleep through all of that, while Hordak did all the work!

Hordak, however, was taking this far more seriously than she’d expected. When Entrapta lifted her head, she managed to catch a quick glimpse of absolute panic. 

“We need to get you out of here!” he said, a frantic tone to his voice. He barged past Entrapta, calling onto the rafters. “Imp. Imp! Make sure that no one enters the Sanctum!”

“Wha- huh?” Entrapta said. 

A confirming chirp came from above and she could hear the little critter disappearing into the vents. 

Hordak, on the other hand, was locking up the doors by the looks of it. 

“What’s going on?” Entrapta asked and tried to lift off the ground with her hair. The strands slid from under her, weaker than they were supposed to be. Darn it. Walking it was, then. She tried to do that, but Hordak was already storming off to another part of the lab. “It’s fine!” she wheezed and pulled out her handkerchief. “I can still work. It’s just a little bit of… lightheadedness. It’s probably going to pass if I sleep for a while.”

Hordak stopped and turned to look at her over his shoulder. He was soon moving again, though, securing the other exit. 

“That is… admirable of you to say,” he grunted. “But we need to get you out of sight. We will retreat into the Chambers.”

“Out of sight?” Entrapta said, now fully baffled. “Wait, Chambers? That’s silly! Stop being silly. I’m just a little sick. I’ll take a little powernap, maybe put on my warm pants and I can get the program worked up by tomorrow.”

Although, she was starting to have some trouble thinking straight. She might have to push that to the day after. 

Hordak stopped and turned to her fully. He was looking unsure, mouth opening, then closing. 

“I…” he started and didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence. For some reason, he looked really bothered by this. 

Time for the best lab partner behavior she could muster! Entrapta offered him a smile and started making her way towards him, words of reassurance on her lips already. 

Her foot landed on a limp strand of hair, yanking her head down hard. The ground disappeared from under her for the shortest of moments. She found it pretty soon, though, when she hit her face with it. 

Hordak yelped. 

Well. It had been a while since she’d tripped on her hair. Guess it was official now. Her hair was all just pooling around her feet, moving sluggishly. 

“Ugh.” She held her head and pushed against the floor. “That didn’t go as planned.”

She didn’t get to do much more than that before the ground disappeared again. The world shifted around her and it took her a moment to realize that she’d been hoisted off the floor. Hordak was carrying her out of the Sanctum, his face set in a grave grimace. 

“I’m _fiiiiine_,” Entrapta said, but the statement was somewhat ruined by the blood trickling from her nose. She wiped it off with the side of her glove. “I can still walk on my own. Hey. Where’re we going?”

“To the Chambers. Well out of sight. They won’t dare to look for you in there.”

“Who’s looking?”

Entrapta rolled her head over the shoulder it’d been leaning on to get a look at the doors. It didn’t look like anyone was trying to barge in. They’d just been working! She looked down to see Imp carrying her hair in his little arms so that it wouldn’t drag against the floor. She had no idea when the little guy had gotten back. 

The Chambers turned out to be a bedroom of sorts. There was a hard cot against the wall with the slimmest pillow Entrapta had ever seen, a small desk and a simple chair next to it. A couple of cabinets had been merged into the walls. 

It wasn’t any more luxurious than a soldier’s quarters. Even the Force Captains had more personality in their rooms. 

Hordak set her down on the cot. He rummaged through overhead cabinets until he found a very thin blanket. He held it for a moment, trying the cloth between his fingers. Then he threw it over Entrapta. 

It wasn’t much of anything. She shivered. 

Hordak grunted and started pulling open the other cabinets. 

Entrapta wouldn’t say that she was very good at reading other people. She worked with robots most of the time. It was easier. They were far simpler to decipher compared to the complicated nuances of Etherians. But she wasn’t stupid. Far from it. 

She could tell something was wrong here, and it wasn’t just her flu. 

Hordak was shaking. Not like when he overexerted himself and his suit acted up. Not like when he got so angry he could hardly contain it. No, it was something else. His eyes were shining with something that Entrapta would have called fear, were they talking about anyone else. He wasn’t hearing a word she was saying. He was going on full autopilot and it was kind of worrying. 

Entrapta sat up slowly, pulling the blanket with her. 

“You need to lay down,” Hordak said, his voice pitched and tight. “I need to… we have to… Just. Hold on. Nothing can reach you here.”

“Hordak,” Entrapta said. She cleared her throat. “It’s… okay. It’s just a little bit of fever.”

Did he not know what fever was? Was that it?

No, no, that didn’t seem likely. 

“We vaccinate for that,” he said, throwing another cabinet door open. Old tech tumbled through and fell to the floor. He hardly even seemed to notice. “Sickness is a weakness that must be culled. Why is there no proper bedding?!”

“A little bit of influenza won’t bring me down,” Entrapta assured him. “I can still work.” She thought about it for a moment. Her arms felt too heavy to lift, her fingers too sluggish to move. ”Well, maybe work on something small. Hm. Or maybe sleep first and then see how it goes. But it’s going to be for like a few days. A week at tops. It’s not the end of the world.”

That made him stop. One of his hands was clutched around the handle to the cabinet, the other buried within. For a moment he just stood there, like the words weren’t fully connecting. 

For a moment Entrapta thought she’d gotten through to him. 

But then Hordak’s face broke into a grimace and his head pulled between his shoulders. 

“You don’t – “ he started, but swallowed, when his voice came out weak. He cleared his throat. “You don’t have to keep telling me that. I… I swear. You’re safe with me. I’m not going to exploit this. I swear. You helped me, I’ll help you. But the others…” He clamped his teeth down and pulled his hand out of the cabinet. He started pacing the room like a caged animal. 

Entrapta just didn’t understand. She was getting dizzy just watching him. 

“I need to set guard,” he muttered, more to himself than her. “But who can we trust? None of them! Imp. Imp needs to stay on guard. Your robot too.”

Imp jumped up to the cot next to Entrapta and climbed to sit on her lap. She patted his head absentmindedly. 

”On guard for what?” she asked. ”I just need a little rest and soup.” She thought about it for a moment. ”I’m going to be fine, Hordak.”

He stopped again and looked at her. He was like an animal caught in a headlight.

“Hordak?” Entrapta said. “What’s wrong?”

Not that Entrapta really had experience with this, but she was pretty sure the one being sick should have been the one getting the reassurances. 

Hordak was breathing shallow. His chest was rising and falling fast and if he kept that up, his suit would start acting up again. Entrapta moved to reach with her hair, but it barely responded to her thoughts. Instead, she lifted her hand and beckoned him to get closer. 

”I need… You’re in no condition to…” He fell silent, seemingly unable to put to words what he was thinking about. 

Entrapta could understand. Sometimes it was very hard to find the right words to say what you meant. Especially, when you were very clearly feeling some strong feelings. She kept her hand reached out to him. 

For a moment it looked like he wasn’t going to move. But then, very slowly, very hesitantly, he stepped closer. 

Close enough for Entrapta to pat his arm. 

“I mean it,” she said, her voice a little hoarse. “It’s just a little bit of flu. I’ll be up and running soon enough. Like a piece of machinery that needs to rest and cool down. Right?”

He stood there, unmoving, staring down at the ground rather than at her. 

”Weakness is… not something that should be shown,” he said. ”It will get you… thrown out. Decommissioned.”

Entrapta’s eyes grew larger. 

”You’re going to throw me out for flu?” she said, disbelieving. 

”No!” he barked, then flinched at his own volume. ”No,” he said, more quiet. ”They’ll never find out. If they don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.”

”Who’s they?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. Entrapta could see him swallow, then his shoulders went down a little. 

”No…” he said and squeezed his eyes shut. He lifted his free hand to cover his eyes. ”It’s not… Prime is not here. I’m in charge here.” His breath shuddered out of him. “And I should be the one… enforcing the rules.” He looked like he was about to pull his hand free. 

Entrapta curled her fingers around his wrist. 

“Throwing someone out because they’re sick is stupid,” she said, trying to get him to meet her eyes. “And a waste of resources.”

“The Horde has resources beyond compare,” he said. His voice was hollow, like he was reciting something well learned. “If it’s broken, it’s thrown out and replaced.”

“Well,” Entrapta croaked. “That’s stupid too. What’re we fixing the portal machine for if that’s true?”

“I…” he started, but didn’t seem to know how to finish the thought. 

He was still trembling. A little. Entrapta could feel it where she was holding his arm. 

Well. Maybe just this once. Because she was such a good lab partner. She let her hand slide down from Hordak’s wrist to his hand. She curled her fingers around his palm and held it there, looking up at him with a bright smile. 

“I’m going to be fine!” she said. “I’m not going anywhere, as long as you’ll have me as your lab partner!”

His eyes grew larger and mouth opened a sliver. The hand in Entrapta’s flinched a little, then turned, so he cold hold onto hers as well. 

For a moment they were just looking at each other. The look in Hordak’s eyes softened. His shoulders relaxed. He’d finally heard what she was saying. It was a temporary fix, but it got him to breathe a little easier at least. Entrapta watched how his ears drooped and a small smile started to pull at his lips. 

She started to think that maybe she was missing something again. 

It was quickly forgotten when she let out a loud sneeze right at his face.


End file.
